Low-density plastic debris dispersion beneath the Mediterranean Sea surface

Data relative to the article Low-density plastic debris dispersion beneath the Mediterranean Sea surface (Baudena et al., 2023; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c08873).

The dataset contains all the data necessary to produce the main figures of this publication (e.g. Fig2.nc file contains all the data used to produce Figure 2). In particular the available data are:

- the concentration of Low-Density Plastic (LDP) on the Mediterranean virtual seafloor at 1000 m (defined as the Mediterranean seafloor, with the difference that the locations deeper than 1000 m were set to 1000 m depth due to computational constraints). A deeper virtual seafloor was used (at 2000 m) with the exception of Scenario 4 (Fig3BCDE.nc).

- the lateral distance traveled by simulated LDP debris during their sinking from the sea surface until they reach the virtual seafloor (Fig3F.nc)

- the concentration of LDP particles deposited less than 20 km from the coast (called the coastal strip) for each country; in addition, we provide the percentage of these particles which were released from the country's own land sources, other countries, or shipping lanes (Fig4.nc and Coastal_Stat_Scenario1_4.txt)

- the relationship relationship between the sinking speed from the drag model (SS_DM) and the difference of the densities of LDP particles and seawater (Fig2.nc)

- the surface sinking rate used as initial condition to release particles at the Mediterranean Sea surface (Fig3A.nc; also available at 10.5281/zenodo.5931213)

For further information, or report any eventual issue, please feel free to contact alberto.baudena@gmail.com